1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an image forming apparatus, an image forming method, and a computer-readable recording medium storing an image forming program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in an image forming apparatus having plural functions, resources are provided which resources are used in common by the plural functions, and the resources are managed by the image forming apparatus. With this, the cost of the image forming apparatus is reduced. Especially, since the cost of a memory unit is high, when the memory unit is used in common by the plural functions, the cost of the image forming apparatus can be reduced.
In Patent Document 1, a digital copying apparatus is disclosed. In the digital copying apparatus, plural pieces of application software share a memory unit as a common resource by an adjustment of a system controller. Printer application software and facsimile application software store corresponding image data in corresponding page memories, and send the image data to a common memory unit. However, when one of the application software pieces uses the common memory unit, the other application software cannot use the common memory unit. That is, the plural pieces of the application software cannot be executed in parallel. Therefore, the processing speed of the digital copying apparatus is lower than the processing speed of an image forming apparatus having a memory unit for individual application software.
In order to solve the above problem, in Patent Document 2, an image forming apparatus is disclosed. In the image forming apparatus, a memory area for individual application software in a common memory unit is adjusted by matching the processing speed of the application software.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 10-074163    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-196903
However, in Patent Documents 1 and 2, the common memory unit is used for storing image data after being applied to a process by the application software, and an individual memory unit is also provided for the application software for processing an individual process. The individual memory unit cannot be used in common. Consequently, too many memory units are provided in the apparatus.